Before the beginning of years/ There came to the making of man/ Time with a gift of tears,/ Grief with a glass that ran.

Time turns the old days to derision, Our loves into corpses or wives; And marriage and death and division Make barren our lives

I will go back to the great sweet mother,/ Mother and lover of men, the sea.

Body and spirit are twins: God only knows which is which

For winter's rains and ruins are over,/ And all the season of snows and sins;/ The days dividing lover and lover,/ The light that loses, the night that wins.

And the best and the worst of this is/ That neither is most to blame/ If you have forgotten my kisses/ And I have forgotten your name.